Technical Information

The Launcher

The REXUS rocket provides three modules for student experiments. The rear section of the rocket consists of the rocket motor and the front section contains the payload. The payload section itself is subdivided into three experiment modules, a service module and a recovery module. The student experiments are located inside the experiment modules, whereas the nosecone section is an ejectable experiment module. REXUS has a lenght of about 5.6 m and a diameter of about 0.4 m. With an improved orian motor it reaches peak altitudes of up to 100 km, depending on its total mass. Aftern burnout, the rocket motor is ejected and the payload section follows a parabolic flight trajectory. During flight, the experiments experience approximately 2-3 min of microgravity at an altitude of 90-100 km.

Experiment Design

The following drawing shows the mechanical design of our experiment, It fits inside a standard REXUS experiment module with the a height of 300 mm and a diameter of 356 mm. The entire experiment is mounted inside the module through four aluminum brackets as shown below. A bulkhead supports the experiment components and seperates the electrical section from the payload section.The payload structure is mounted on the upper side of the bulkhead and before deployment it is stowed inside a payload casing. After deployment the payload structure is cured through the UV-radiation from four UV-LED panels mounted on the inner skin of the experiment housing. A camera observes the deployment and curing process visually while different additional sensors save temperature and pressure data. The following images show the experiment design in different design phases: